A September Anniversary.

Hanna and I have been married for 34 years. We had three weddings in fact, being party animals at the time, so we had two weddings in Sussex and one in Naperville, Chicago.

The legalities were covered by a registry office wedding in Worthing. We drove there in the Wildlife Trust Transit van with half a dozen car-sick witnesses. We were late, I drove like an idiot, and there were no seats or windows in the back. I didn't actually know where the registry office was. It was a lovely service though, followed by lunch at a pretty little restaurant in Burpham. We had an amazing party that night at the White Horse pub in Sutton, with the famous Copper Family singers in attendance.


The big wedding took place the next day at the Wildfowl Trust centre in Arundel, and we closed the place for the whole afternoon and evening. This time Hanna and her Dad (Nic) were the ones to be late. Nic drove a rental car that nearly landed up in the lake outside as the locked wheels spat gravel across the water. Of course the whole evening was more than perfect and I still can't believe we had such a marvelous start to our married life.

We flew to Chicago for our honeymoon, but first we had to put on a mini wedding for those who didn't make it to England. I really liked Chicago, but I enjoyed our honeymoon trip across America and back even more. I must write this all up properly when I have sorted the thousands of slides from our loft and scanned them in. Anyway, the date was September 23rd 1983, hence the celebrations this weekend.

How did we celebrate the day? We went for a walk on a nature reserve near home. True to form, I got us lost and we had only an hour to explorer Titchmarsh Nature Reserve, which isn't anywhere near Titchmarsh really, it's in Aldwincle. This beautiful stone village lies just over the border from us in Northamptonshire. You can actually camp in the church!

You have heard of "Glamping" (glamorous camping) but have you heard of "Champing" (church camping)?  http://www.champing.co.uk/church/aldwincle-northants-all-saints/ 

After all the frenzied nonsense of our week, even an hour outside worked miracles for us as we meandered about watching fish, dragonflies, spiders and even a snail. Sometimes it is enough to simply stand still and tune-in. That's when you notice the strange white bees visiting the  Himalayan Balsam flowers. Their fuzzy white coats are made of a wooly blanket of balsam pollen.

One paddock was almost entirely composed of teasels and nothing else. We saw no wildlife in there at first but then we noticed that some of the teasels were shaking, as if struck by a sudden gust of wind. A whole flock of invisible Soay sheep was grazing away in there. They disturbed a charm of goldfinches that swelled to a rippling swarm that passed over our heads to feed on thistle down across the stream.

All too soon we had to leave, escorted by a squadron of greylag geese, then a buzzard and two red kites. We were not late home.